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Walking It Off, Doug Peacock’s memoir, separates the man from the myth

Walking It Off by Doug Peacock, Ewu Press, 208 pgs., 2005. Think you know Doug Peacock? Think again. He was the inspiration for George Washington Hayduke, the hard-charging, Vietnam-scarred protagonist of Edward Abbey’s classic environmental novel The Monkey Wrench Gang. But there’s more to the Peacock story than just trashing bulldozers and causing trouble — […]

Logging keeps Asian elephants in business … for now

At a fork in the road, our guide points to the right. “That’s the main road there,” he says. “We’ll go on this smaller road, deep into the jungle.” A glance to the left reveals a narrow, unpaved track, which he tells us is used primarily by logging trucks. It’s the dry season in Myanmar, […]

Hog Heaven

Indiana burg to become “BioTown” The small farming community of Reynolds, Ind., is gearing up to take advantage of its ripest renewable resource: vast amounts of stinky hog poop. Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and the Indiana Department of Agriculture have designated the one-traffic-light burg as the world’s first “BioTown.” The plan is for its homes […]

Continental Wreck-Fest

Europeans adapting to the realities of a disrupted climate While Americans quibble ignorantly over whether climate change is really happening, Europeans are already adapting to it. Swedish foresters are being told to plant trees that will thrive in warmer temperatures. Planners of a new subway system in Copenhagen, Denmark, raised all structures to accommodate an […]

Price Guys Finish First

Toyota plans to cut price of its hybrids Aching for a Toyota Prius hybrid, but wilting at the thought of shelling out $3,500 or more over the price of a conventional car? Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe is thinking of you: He’s directed the company’s engineering chief to halve the price difference between a hybrid and […]

Experts look to captive breeding to slow amphibian extinction rates

According to this article in Reuters:

Amphibian experts are likely to urge captive breeding to slow a catastrophic rate of extinctions threatening a third of all species of frogs and salamanders, a leading scientist said. While a third of amphibian species are under threat, comparable rates are 12 percent for birds and 23 percent for mammals.

Not looking good. But hey, I put my recycle bin out yesterday. I used to have a cartoon pinned to my wall of a heron with a frog sticking head-first out of his mouth. The frog had grabbed the heron by the throat so he couldn't swallow. The caption read, "Never give up!"

Consumer Reports’ real-world mpg figures make the Prius even more appealing

Consumer Reports recently claimed that EPA's vehicle ratings routinely overstate how fuel-efficient cars and trucks are in real-world driving. For standard cars and trucks, the magazine says, EPA's ratings overstate real-world fuel economy by 30 percent. But for small hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, they claim that EPA overstates actual miles-per-gallon by a hefty 42 percent. (Ouch.)

Now, I believe that there's reason to question Consumer Reports' figures. Of course, I have read a number of reports that the Toyota Prius doesn't actually get the EPA-rated 55 mpg in combined city/highway driving (though some people -- particularly those who've optimized their hybrid-driving habits -- get pretty close, and these folks actually squeezed out 110 mpg from their Prius, albeit in highly non-standard driving conditions). But I'd never heard any claim that the typical Prius averages just 32 mpg -- which is what the magazine's figures suggest. See this comment by WorldChanging's Jamais Cascio for a similar take.

But, just for the sake of argument, let's take the CR figures at face value, and assume that small hybrids' mileage really is overstated by 42 percent, vs. just 30 percent for regular cars. Doesn't the higher mpg reduction for hybrids suggest that their fuel-savings advantages vs. regular cars are overstated -- and that they don't save as much money as advertised?

Actually, no. As counterintuitive as it may sound, the Consumer Reports figures, on their face, actually bolster the economic case for buying hybrids.

The environmental take on Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast, it stirred up not just gale-force winds and untold misery, but a host of difficult environmental questions. How did heedless coastal development exacerbate the hurricane’s toll? What’s behind the socio-economic disparity in environmental planning — and emergency response to environmental disasters? Did global warming make the storm […]

Student journalists reflect on the New Orleans they once knew

As noted in today's Daily Grist (you do read the Daily Grist, don't you? Of course you do!), Fish and Wildlife Service staff are just getting to work assessing the ecological damage to two wildlife refuges near New Orleans: Bayou Sauvage and Big Branch Marsh.

I've never been to New Orleans or the Gulf Coast. I avoid places that might serve up more heat and humidity than I endure on the average August day in New York City; find blackened anything inedible; and own my heritage as a repressed Northeasterner who finds the whole Mardi-Gras-public-nekkidity-license-to-debauch thing a little scary.

But reading about places like Bayou Sauvage makes me really regret it. Below the fold, a description from some student journalists who attended the Society of Environmental Journalists' 2003 annual confab in New Orleans:

Umbra on windows

Dear Umbra, I just bought an old house and need to replace some of the windows. Are there alternatives to vinyl windows that will still cut down on heat loss? Noah WinerPhiladelphia, Pa. Dearest Noah, I hope I’ve caught you before you’ve placed your window order, because you are at a moment of opportunity. Window […]